Sideshow Freak Bar

When we listed it, the Sideshow Freak Bar was the little bar nestled in the corner of the Coney Island Circus Freakshow. The building around it went up in 1917 as the first of two Childs restaurants in Coney Island, and it ran as one until 1943¹. In 1996 it became the headquarters of Coney Island USA, a not-for-profit arts organization, which acquired the property in 2008¹.

The city made the building a landmark in 2011¹. The Atlantic Ocean was unimpressed: in the early evening of October 29, 2012, a five-foot swell came in off it and inundated Freak Bar².

Today Freak Bar is in the landmarked building at 1208 Surf Avenue, alongside the sideshow and the Coney Island Museum^{1, 3}. It keeps matinee hours, noon to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays³.